Seconds
by raichley
Summary: Really bad title (I'm bad at titles sorry). A oneshot focusing on Will and Alana while Will is incarcerated in the Hospital for the Criminally Insane.


**Disclaimer: I do not own 'Hannibal' or any related characters.**

Will Graham's life was made up of hours and days that never changed, of the same second repeated over and over again in a dark cell that held only a simple bed and a man in an orange jumpsuit, of boredom and nothingness and the unrealistic knowledge that somewhere, somehow, time was passing.

"It's Wednesday today," Dr. Bennett would tell him. And a few days or hours or forevers later – how was Will to know which? - he would come back and say, "Today is Thursday. It's sunny outside. A great day. You can take a walk if you want."

So Will took a walk, guarded by doctors and high fences and a blue sky that to many people would represent freedom, but to Will it was just another part of the cage that held him here. The grass in the courtyard was green, the trees were tall and healthy, the flowers blossomed and the insects ran free.

"I told you it was a great day, didn't I?" Dr. Bennett said.

Will didn't know how to tell him he was wrong.

And then, after the non-passing of time in the courtyard, Dr. Bennett told him that they had been outside for nearly half an hour and it was time to go back inside. Will took one last glance at the freedom of the sky and followed Dr. Bennett back into the building, guided by the nameless guard.

Once he was back in his cell, it was as if he had never been outside at all. Time meant nothing. The tick-tock tick-tock of the clock in the hallway outside meant nothing. The thoughts that ran through his brain, the doubts and fears and questions – they meant nothing at all.

They were still there, though. The doubts. The fears. The questions. They meant nothing to him. Just the same empty words his mind had run over and over and over a million times since he first came here, until they had no meaning any more. What if he was wrong about Hannibal? What if he was the killer? What if he was stuck here for the rest of his life? What if, what if, what if...

He stared glumly at his hands, recognising the pattern of wrinkles on his knuckles and the yellow colour of his skin in the dim light, the way he had memorised them so long ago.

And he sat there, because that's what he did. Dr. Bennett had long since given up on offering him books or felt tips and paper or anything at all, really, because he refused them all. Books could not interest him. Felt tips could not make time pass.

He sat there for what was hours to everyone else and no time for him. He was used to the long periods of nothingness now, to the slow, crawling passage of second after second after second when each and every second was the same.

Then, later, she came.

"Hey," she said.

He looked up, taking in the sight of her. Her long, wavy dark hair flowed past her shoulders, her blue eyes shone in the darkness like two tiny moons on a dark, starless night, and she wore a black coat over a dark skirt and a pale scarf woven around her neck.

"Hey," he said.

She smiled. The smile made her beautiful, but Will knew she would soon be gone and there would be no beauty any more, so that did not matter. He looked down at his hands again.

A second passed. This one was not like the others, though; it was filled with tension and awkwardness and a feeling Will had long since forgotten.

"Winston's doing well," the woman offered tentatively. He got the feeling she didn't know how to talk to him any more. She didn't know what to say. Maybe she'd never known. But she still came here, to see him, and maybe that mattered to her but Will could not make it matter to him.

She carried on. "The vet let me bring him home yesterday," she told him. "She said he should be okay now. He's going to live for a long time."

Will looked up at her, an angel standing in hell, and knew he should feel relieved. She'd told him Winston was sick a few forevers ago – only a week or so after he'd been incarcerated, back when time still meant something to him – but now, he could hardly remember what Winston looked like or the last time he'd seen him.

"He and Henry spent about half an hour barking at each other," she said, her mouth jerking upwards as she attempted a smile. "I think they were happy to see each other again."

A silence followed this. The seconds piled on each other, all the same to Will and all different to her.

Eventually, Will spoke. He said only one word. Her name. "Alana."

Alana smiled at him, gently, and he could see the pity in her face. He could see that she thought of him as helpless, as a victim, as insane and crazy and countless other words he wasn't.

"Why do you still come here?" he asked her.

She opened her mouth to speak, but then closed it again when the words didn't come to her. Memories flooded into her brain – a kiss that should never have happened, her yelling at Jack, her tears in the car after that talk in the interrogation room, the expression on Will's face when he said, "It's just a normal clock!" and her wordlessness when she wanted to tell him it wasn't, and a long time before that when she'd told him he wasn't broken.

But he was broken. Maybe not then – then he was just a little bent, just a little twisted out of shape, still recognisable, still himself – but now. She could see it in his eyes and in the way his shoulders slumped. He wasn't her Will any more. Will was gone. Will was a killer, Will was a murderer, Will was broken and alone and she couldn't help him any more.

She had to try, though. She'd be damned if she didn't try.

"For you," she told him.

He looked down, and she tried to work out what he thought of that, but she could not even begin to imagine how his brain worked now. She didn't know him any more.

"You shouldn't," he said eventually. "There's nothing you can do here. Go home, Alana."

She closed her eyes, but she had no argument for him, so she told him "Goodbye," and turned and walked away down the hallway. The guard let her out, and she walked and walked and walked until she was out of the hospital, down the road, and had no idea where she was.

She kicked a parked car as she walked past it.

Her brain was a maze of thoughts and fears, a confusing mess of words and sentences and what ifs, turning and twisting and piling on top of each other, and she wished, beyond everything else besides Will being innocent, that it would stop. That she could think clearly for just one second. That the seas would calm and the storm would move on.

She hated this.

She hated the empty, emotionless expression on Will's face that she saw every time she saw him, and she hated the dim light in the corridor that led to his cell. She hated the rain and the way it fell without warning, and the fact he'd never know when that happened. She hated the sky he couldn't see and the breeze he couldn't feel, and the days when the wind was deceptively calm. She hated the way it felt now to see people smile when it had been so long since she'd felt that way herself. She hated her emotions, and she hated herself for ever letting herself get so close to him, for ever letting her lips press softly against his.

Mostly, she hated the way she loved Will, with all her stupid heart.

Her phone buzzed in her coat pocket, and she considered not anwering it, but after a couple of seconds she pulled it out and looked at it. It was Joel, her elder brother, in town because Jack Crawford had called him about how worried he was about Alana. She sighed and then pressed send.

"Hey, 'Lana?" Joel said, "You okay?"

"I'm fine, Joel," she promised him. A lie.

She heard her brother exhale in relief, and then words being muttered on the other end of the line, and then Joel spoke again. "I'm at the hospital," he told her. "You've been gone all night, 'Lana, where are you?"

"I'm fine," she repeated.

"'Lana, I have no idea where you are!" he exclaimed. "You could've been anywhere for all I know! You could've been doing anything!"

She didn't reply to that. She had nothing to say.

It was a long time before Joel spoke again. "Where are you, 'Lana?"

"I don't know," she admitted.

Joel groaned. "Alana," he reprimanded her. "Okay. Just look around you. What is there?"

She looked around, taking in the long fields and dark sky. "Not much," she told him. And then she saw it, through the patch of trees across the field next to her. An abandoned house, like a boat on a sea of tree trunks and leaves. "Will's house."

"'Lana," Joel whispered quietly, and then cursed. "Okay, wait there. I'm gonna come find you, okay?"

"Okay," Alana echoed, and the call ended. She stood there, staring at the house Will would be in right now if life was fair and the world was a good place to live. Maybe she'd be in there with him, kissing him goodnight, tucking his kids into bed...

She stopped, because life was not fair and the world was terrible and if she gave those thoughts a place in her mind it would be even worse. They were not a happy, blissful couple, nor would they ever be. That was impossible now. It had always been impossible.

She was a woman grieving the loss of a man who had not died yet, and he was a killer in an innocent man's body, and nothing could ever be right in their lives as long as that were true.

Joel was there quicker than she expected. He stopped the car and climbed out as soon as he saw her, and for a moment they just stood next to her, staring across at Will's empty house.

"It'll be -" Joel began.

"Don't say it'll be okay," Alana pleaded. "It won't. How can it?"

Joel looked across at her, and then wrapped his arms around her and pulled her close. "I know, 'Lana," he murmured. "I know. I'm sorry."

Not even the feel of her brother's arms around her could make her feel better.


End file.
